modalverberne

Modalverberne is the term used in Danish and Norwegian for a small, closed class of auxiliary verbs that express modality. They accompany the main verb to indicate possibilities such as ability, permission, obligation, or necessity, as well as other attitudes toward a proposition. In this sense they behave similarly to modal verbs in many languages: they modify the force or likelihood of the action rather than carrying full lexical meaning themselves.

In Danish and Norwegian, modalverberne are finite and typically precede the main verb, which remains in its infinitive form after the modal. The main verb is usually in bare infinitive, without a corresponding infinitive marker like English to. They can form periphrastic perfects by combining with an auxiliary participle, for example kan have skrevet in Danish or kan ha skrevet in Norwegian, meaning “can have written.” Questions and negation are formed with standard word order changes and with ikke (not) following the modal, as in Kan jeg ikke? or Jeg kan ikke.

Common modal meanings include ability or possibility (can, kunne), permission (may, kunne måske), obligation or necessity (må, burde), and future orientation or intention (vil, skulle). Modalverberne can also express epistemic modality, such as deduction or probability, depending on context. They form part of a broader typology of modality in Germanic languages, where the set is relatively small and syntactically distinct from full lexical verbs.

Historically, modalverberne derive from verbs of ability, obligation, or permission that became auxiliary and began to govern the main verb in a fixed, modal function. In modern Danish and Norwegian, they remain a central syntactic device for expressing modal meanings.